Parallel Works
View as Markdown
Share:

Troubleshooting

This page covers common issues you may encounter when using AI Chat and how to resolve them.

No Providers Available

Symptom: The provider or model dropdown is empty, or you see a message indicating no providers are configured.

Cause: No AI Chat providers have been set up for your organization, or you do not have permission to use the available providers.

Solution:

  • Contact your organization administrator and ask them to configure an AI Chat provider. See AI Chat Providers for setup instructions.
  • If providers exist but you cannot see them, ask the administrator to grant your group access to the provider. See Managing Provider Permissions.

Connection Errors

Symptom: You receive an error when sending a message, such as "Failed to connect" or "Provider endpoint unreachable."

Cause: The underlying AI provider endpoint may be unavailable, misconfigured, or experiencing an outage.

Solution:

  • Verify that the provider endpoint is correct and accessible. For custom OpenAI-compatible providers, confirm that the endpoint URL is reachable from the ACTIVATE platform.
  • For session tunnel providers, ensure the tunnel is active and the compute session is running. Tunnels are only available while the associated session is active. See Session Tunnels.
  • For Azure OpenAI providers, verify the API key and endpoint in the provider configuration. Check the Azure status page for any ongoing outages.
  • Try sending another message after a few moments. Transient network issues may resolve on their own.

Slow or Stalled Responses

Symptom: The AI response takes a long time to appear or the loading indicator runs indefinitely.

Cause: This can happen for several reasons:

  • Reasoning models use an extended thinking phase before generating a response. This is expected behavior and can take significantly longer than standard models. See Using Reasoning Models.
  • High model load on the provider side can cause delays, especially with shared or rate-limited endpoints.
  • Large conversation context can increase processing time as the model processes more tokens.

Solution:

  • If using a reasoning model, wait for the response to complete. The thinking phase may take 30 seconds or longer for complex prompts.
  • For standard models, try starting a new conversation to reduce context size.
  • If the issue persists, check with your administrator whether the provider endpoint is under heavy load.

File Upload Failures

Symptom: A file upload fails or you see an error when attaching a file to a message.

Cause: The file may exceed size limits or be in an unsupported format.

Solution:

  • Check the file size. Regular files have a maximum size of 25 MB, while documents have a maximum size of 100 MB.
  • Verify that the file type is supported. Common supported types include text files, code files, PDFs, images, and office documents.
  • Try uploading a smaller file or splitting large files into smaller parts.
  • See Attaching Files for detailed information on supported formats and size limits.

Model Not Listed

Symptom: A specific model you expect to see is not available in the model dropdown.

Cause: The model may not be deployed on the provider, or the provider configuration may not include it.

Solution:

  • Verify with your administrator that the desired model is deployed and available on the provider endpoint.
  • For Azure OpenAI providers, confirm that the model deployment name is correctly configured.
  • For custom providers, ensure the endpoint's /v1/models response includes the model you are looking for.
  • Check that you have permission to use the provider that hosts the model.

CLI Chat Issues

Symptom: The pw ai chats new command fails or cannot connect.

Cause: Authentication, network, or model identifier issues.

Solution:

  • Verify you are authenticated: run pw auth login if needed.
  • Confirm the model identifier is correct. It must use the format owner:provider/model-name (for example, me:my-provider/gpt-4o). Run pw ai models ls to see available models.
  • Check your network connection to the ACTIVATE platform.
  • See Using the CLI for detailed setup instructions.

Getting Help

If the solutions above do not resolve your issue:

  1. Check the AI Chat overview for general guidance on available features.
  2. Review the AI Chat Providers documentation to verify your provider configuration.
  3. Contact your organization administrator for platform-specific assistance.
  4. Reach out to Parallel Works support for further troubleshooting.

Related Documentation